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We have some big news to share with you today, so we'll just cut right to the chase. Wasteland 2 Director's Cut will be releasing digitally on PC on October 13, 2015! Additionally, for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, digital and physical releases will be coming on October 13th in the Americas, and October 16th Worldwide!

As we've said before, anyone who already owns Wasteland 2 on any digital PC retailer will be getting the Director's Cut as a free update on PC. We'll have more information as we get closer to release, but it's our intention to make sure it's as easy a process as possible. Keep your eyes peeled on our Wasteland 2 forums as we'll be putting up FAQs and similar in the coming weeks towards release.

For those of you who are still curious about the Director's Cut contents, features, and changes, or may have missed our discussions on them previously, here are some links that go over some of those new elements in detail.

Quirks, a new set of gameplay-modifying personality traits and characteristics for your squad.

Perks, new bonuses you will be able to pick for your characters as they level up.

Precision Strikes, a combat technique allowing you to you target enemy body parts to inflict debilitating effects and injuries.

And those do not even fully cover all the new additions, like new and expanded voice-over for many of the game's key NPCs and companions, as well as our extensive rebalancing of virtually every combat encounter, loot drop, and item you'll find in the game.

We're now in the home stretch of development. Our final tasks in the several weeks before final release include polishing up the game as much as we can, including tweaks, optimizations, fixes and balance adjustments. We hope you will enjoy the changes and updates as much as we enjoyed bringing them to you.

New Screenshots

We've got a bunch of new screenshots ready for you for this announcement, showing off some of our graphical updates and changes to our environments and character models. Our art team has worked tirelessly to make sure the Wasteland is more vibrant and detailed than ever, and we're extremely pleased with the results.

Last Call for Wasteland Playing Cards

As you may well be aware, we've partnered with Jackson Robinson and Kings Wild Project to provide you with some awesome Wasteland-themed playing cards. His campaign is in its final hours with just over one day left, so if you want to pick up some of these backer-exclusive cards, now is your last chance.

E3 Coverage & Gamescom

As we mentioned in a previous update, we were at E3 2015 in June, and we had a great experience.It's exciting and useful for our development to actually get people playing this new version of the game, and we wanted to share some of the E3 coverage with you if you'd missed it previously:

Things have been pretty hectic and crazy the last weeks around inXile HQ, especially as we rocket towards finishing Wasteland 2 Director's Cut. The good news is that things are shaping up awesomely on all fronts!

Director's Cut Live Stream with Quill18

During our Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter closing party, we will be live streaming from 4 PM to 6 PM PST with renowned Twitch and YouTube star Quill18. As a special treat, we will be demoing Wasteland 2 Director's Cut live for you during the stream. This is the first time we are publicly showing live gameplay.

The stream will be hosted on Quill18's Twitch channel, and we will try to get it archived for you afterwards, but join us live if you are able. You will not want to miss it!

A Precise Look at Precision Strikes

One of the main features we have been working on for the last little while has been Precision Strikes, our called shots-type system that many fans of post-apocalyptic games will be familiar with. This is actually one of the earliest features we designed and prototyped for the Director's Cut, but it also went through a lot of subtle changes and iteration along the way. And now we can finally show it off to you!

First, what exactly are Precision Strikes? Put simply, they a new shot type we have added to combat. Precision Strikes will let you aim at specific enemy body parts, and depending on the body part you fire on, you will be able to inflict debilitating status effects.

When we approached Precision Strikes, we had a few goals in mind. First, we didn't want Precision Strikes to feel like they were always the superior option. We wanted Precision Strikes to live up to their name – to be used tactically and situationally – rather than being used each and every time.

On that note, we also wanted Precision Strikes to all be useful in their own ways. We made sure each type of Precision Strike had its own unique qualities. Different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses (something we had to further refine and accentuate thanks to our rebalancing and new additions like Precision Strikes and Perks), and with Precision Strikes you will have ways to counter them effectively.

When attacking enemies, you have up to four Precision Strike options. We are still tweaking the numbers a bit, but their effects are:

Arms: 0.7x damage, reduces the enemy's Chance to Hit, chance of destroying their weapon and causing it to explode in a shower of shrapnel. Moderate Chance to Hit penalty.

Legs: 0.7x damage, reduces the enemy's Combat Speed, chance of knocking them down and reducing their Action Points. Moderate Chance to Hit penalty.

We wanted Precision Strikes to be fairly reliable so that you'd want to use them often, but to also capture a degree of randomness, allowing you to cause cool and unique effects. Sure, you might be able to reduce an enemy's Chance to Hit by aiming at their arms, but rarely, you'll actually destroy their weapon entirely, causing it to explode in their face for some extra damage. Little random elements like this let us make the system feel exciting and unpredictable.

We even have some extra bits of polish in there as well. These body parts will vary in their naming a bit depending on the enemy type. For example, if you go up against a robot, you might find that instead of a head, it has a CPU, and instead of a torso, a chassis. We also have some new sounds, particle effects and even animations on certain enemies that also tie into the new system.

Overall it's a ton of fun to play with. It really does add a degree of depth to the combat, and we can't wait for you to enjoy it yourselves.

Wasteland 2 Playing Cards Funded!

Another successful Kickstarter you may have seen featured in our previous updates is Jackson Robinson's Wasteland 2 playing cards! His campaign funded in a little over 2 hours after launching, and he has so far raised a huge amount over his original goal. This has been an amazing collaboration, and we're very pleased with the results.
Jackson recently shared a speed painting of someone you might recognize from Wasteland 2 – take a look below!

That's all for now, everyone! We'll have more coming for you in the next weeks. For now, we have a party to attend, a campaign to wrap up and a massive Wasteland 2 update to get polished and ready for you. Onwards!

We wanted to get an update out to you all before the 4th of July holiday weekend, and have a few things we thought we'd share with you.

First, in case you missed it - in our last update, we announced that we're renaming our upcoming version of Wasteland 2 for PC and consoles as Wasteland 2 Director's Cut. It is still coming free to all owners on PC in late summer this year! Be sure to check out this little trailer we put together:

Limited Edition Wasteland Playing Cards – Now on Kickstarter!

The coolest thing we want to share today is a collaboration we started with Jackson Robinson, a Kickstarter veteran who has successfully funded and delivered on numerous projects on this service. His specialty is creating unique, themed, high-quality playing cards. Several of us backed his earlier projects, so when he pitched us the idea of doing a Wasteland-themed deck of cards, inspired by the story and characters of our game, we felt that it was a natural fit.

As Jackson is an avid gamer and industry veteran, along with a true believer in the power of crowdfunding, we have total confidence in him to create high-quality cards that you'll enjoy either collecting or using with your friends for all kinds of tabletop card games.

We were ecstatic to see this Kickstarter hit its funding goal in just a couple of hours after launch, but there's four weeks left for you to jump on board and get this unique collectable! Remember that these cards are limited-edition, and won't be available after the Kickstarter campaign, so get them now while they're hot!

Wasteland 2 Director's Cut Media Update

The Director's Cut edition of Wasteland 2 is progressing well. We are running on all cylinders testing, polishing, and taking it through the required rigmarole for release. This includes the fun stuff – making sure the game is balanced and plays great – to the less exciting but still necessary, such as getting updated age ratings, re-doing the manual, creating new box art, and the big one, console certification.

We'll have more in-depth coverage as we get closer to release, but we wanted to share some brand-new screenshots and a few new clips from the trenches. Enjoy!

It's that time of the year once again! E3 2015 has come and gone, and the gaming world has been flooded with big news from all over the globe. And we are no exception to that, as we have a huge helping of items ourselves to share with you!

The Bard's Tale IV – Just over 2 weeks left!

As some of you might have heard, the team behind Wasteland 2 has also been running a Kickstarter campaign for The Bard's Tale IV. We've fully funded the project thanks to the support of nearly 30,000 backers, but are looking to make this the epic scale game that you have come to expect from us! With only two weeks left on our campaign, we want to close in a big way.

If you haven't seen The Bard's Tale IV footage, you must check it out!

We say it all the time, but we mean it: our games would not happen without your incredible support. And we want to reward your generosity in the past by offering a special promotion for all of our returning backers.

Today we are happy to roll out an inXile Loyalty Rewards promotion! Anyone who backed Wasteland 2 or Torment: Tides of Numenera previously, who also backs The Bard's Tale IV at $20 or above, will get a FREE bonus reward containing items from either Torment, Wasteland 2 or The Bard's Tale IV (valued at up to $15)! These rewards include items such as digital soundtracks, novella compilations, concept art books and more.

Furthermore, any returning backers who back The Bard's Tale IV at the $33 tier or higher will additionally receive FREE copies of Ultima Underworld 1 & 2, from GOG.com and our friends at OtherSide Entertainment. This offer is only available until June 26th. If you are a returning backer and have already backed The Bard's Tale IV – and if you did, thank you! – the loyalty reward is also retroactive for you as well.

Simply back The Bard's Tale IV on Kickstarter using the same account you did previously in our system. We'll contact you after the Kickstarter campaign concludes so you can make your selection. For more details and the full roster of options available, please visit this page.

Of course, this is independent of our other special offer: all backers of The Bard's Tale IV at $20 and up, whether they've backed us before or not, will be getting a free copy of the Bard's Tale I-III Trilogy, letting everyone experience the original games that started it all.

We are very cognizant of how many emails you get each day so we promise not to update on the Bard’s Tale Kickstarter campaign again. Supporting inXile with each of our endeavors allows us to bring you a certain style of RPG that we know you love.

Wasteland 2 Director's Cut

Many of you are familiar with our previously announced Game of the Year Edition update for Wasteland 2. Today, we are happy to share with you that Wasteland 2 Game of the Year Edition will henceforth be known as Wasteland 2 Director's Cut. And to commemorate this occasion, we have a brand-new trailer to share with you, featuring all-new footage taken directly from the Director's Cut!

Why the change? We feel that this new title more accurately reflects the contents of the update. Rather than just being a repackaging of the same old content, the Director's Cut name indicates the sheer scope of the changes involved. With many all-new features that you have requested, overhauled graphics, an upgrade to a new game engine, and tons of new recorded voice-over, not to mention controller support and Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions – Wasteland 2 Director's Cut is truly the definitive version of the game. And of course, anyone who currently owns Wasteland 2 will get the Director’s Cut on PC, Mac and Linux for FREE!

E3 2015 – LA, here we come!

Associate producer Thomas Beekers has been working hard this week, hanging out at E3 2015 in Los Angeles along with Brian Fargo, Maxx Kaufman, Joey Betz, Erika Sass and myself. They were all on hand to demo the game for the press and fans running on real console hardware. We've been thrilled to finally take the lid off and share this version of the game for the first time. We managed to snap some photos of the fun so we could share it with you.

Show-goers enjoying Wasteland 2 on consoles for the first time.

Brian talking to press. This was not the first nor the last.

We were even nominated for WorthPlaying's Best of Show award! Here's Thomas displaying the badge of honor.

We are very proud of how great the game is turning out, and just how well it plays with a controller – not something you might expect from a top-down perspective party-based RPG. In fact, thanks to our new features like Precision Strikes, Perks and Quirks, the game celebrates replayability more than ever now.

The feedback we got from E3 was great not just for the sake of press coverage, but also for letting us get the game in the hands of eager testers for the first time. The game played great, and we were also able to take those first impressions to fine tune the game even more. As we move towards release we will be working to polish things up and make this the best version of Wasteland 2 yet, whether you choose to play with keyboard and mouse, or with a controller in hand.

As a general note, the screenshots and video in this update are all using our controller interface – but remember that we won't be forcing a controller-driven interface on you when you use mouse and keyboard.

We showed you Quirks – now, here's Perks

When we first announced this updated version of Wasteland 2, we hinted at a number of new features. One of those was Quirks, our personality-defining characteristics you pick when you start the game and which have both positive and negative aspects, but we haven't spoken about Perks in detail yet – the other side of the new character customization depth we've been cooking up.

Perks, unlike Quirks, are gained as you level up your characters. As you progress in the game you will earn Perk Points, which you can spend on Perks whenever you wish. Perks are per-character bonus you pick, and unlike Quirks, they are always positive stat and gameplay adjustments. Right now, we have it set up so that you gain a new Perk Point every 3 levels, though we're currently playing through the game balancing things out, so the rate you earn Perk Points may change by final release. Perks also have Skill requirements to unlock – for instance, you might need 3 in Toaster Repair, or 7 in Assault Rifles, with more useful or powerful Perks typically at higher Skill requirements.

The Perks screen will list all available Perks as well as the ones your character has learned. Each Perk costs 1 Perk Point, which you'll gain throughout the game as your squad levels up.

This also gives us a great opportunity for us to give players more incentive to pick certain Skills, since now you might need to think about which Skills to get based on the Perks they unlock. Some Perks are a bit more universal in how they work. For instance, you might get a bigger Evasion bonus from hiding behind cover, but with others, you will get gameplay-altering features that will change how you approach combat or exploration, such as unlocking the ability to deal more damage when attacking from behind.

Here's a few more examples:

Deadeye: Slow and steady wins the race. In combat, your enemies keep an eye on you at all times - because if they don't, they're liable to lose theirs.

Benefits: -1 Action Point cost when firing Sniper Rifles if you haven't moved during your combat turn

Glancing Strike
: Your prowess in close combat allows you to catch your enemies with a well-timed melee strike as they weave in and out of the fray.

And that's just a small sampling. We have over 80 Perks in the game for your party to earn, giving you new tactical options and choices in how you build your party. We are very happy in how the system has turned out and we can't wait to let you enjoy it!

Texas Hold 'Em – Ranger style!

We'd like to announce that we have partnered with Kings Wild Project and Jackson Robinson to Kickstart an awesome Wasteland-themed playing card deck! These cards feature art inspired by the game and look and feel awesome. You can view more photos of the cards here. The Kickstarter for these cards will begin July 1st, 7 PM Central time, so mark your calendar!

The box. What could be inside?!

This isn't the Jack you expected to see...

Bust these babies out at the table to dispense that good 'ol Ranger justice.

That's all for now, but if you've been counting, we've still got a couple more bits and pieces to share with you before Wasteland 2 Director's Cut ends up in stores – or as a free update in your game library if you already own Wasteland 2 on PC. We hope to share more of those with you before we release in late summer of this year.

Today is a very special day. As you may know, it marks the 30th anniversary of The Bard's Tale, the game that started my career in game development in earnest. And now, we want to bring back The Bard's Tale IV with the power of the crowd once again.

The original game has a special place in my heart and fans have shown me time and again they still love the dungeon crawl genre and want more. With your help, I can finally make this long-awaited true sequel to the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy, bringing you that sense of discovery with challenging dungeons and devious puzzles that you loved and cursed all at once. And what’s more, if you back in the first 24 hours we’re throwing in a free game, your choice of an extra copy of Wasteland 2, or The Witcher or The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

We hope you’ll join us!

I also want to take a moment to thank you again for all the support you’ve shown us. With both our Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarters we were blown away by your faith in us. The support you've given us on the previous campaigns stand as the high points of my career and has allowed me to go back to what I love, making cRPGs.